This invention pertains to the sealing of ball bearings, to prevent water or other contaminants from entering the area of the balls and ball races.
In installations where a ball bearing has an inner race engaging a shaft, a plurality of balls, and an outer race engaging a housing, there is often need to form a seal between the shaft and the outer race.
In the past, a wide variety of molded elastic seals have been used to seal such bearings. Usually, they have been pressed into bores of the outer race, or into bores of a housing, and an elastic lip has been biased against the shaft, forming a seal on the shaft.
The molds for such seals require accurate and expensive die work to produce. In producing the seals themselves, elastic must be injected into dies using expensive machinery. Also, such seals often require metal inserts, which also must be manufactured.
Each size of such seals must be separately manufactured, distributed and stored. Each seal is, in effect, a separate product of its own. Thousands of different seals have been produced, requiring a vast expense for production and tooling.
Usually, such seals require special mandrels for installing them, and often special removal tools are needed to get them out.
The bearing seal of this invention provides solutions to most of these problems:
1. The sealing device is composed of very simple and readily available parts: PA1 2. Since O-rings are readily available, only the flat sealing rings would need to be produced, stored, and carried by dealers. PA1 3. No installation or removal tools are required. PA1 1. To provide a seal consisting of simple parts. PA1 2. To provide a seal which can be installed or removed without any tools. PA1 3. To provide a seal which can be made without expensive dies or molding machines.
(a) An neoprene O-ring is used as a circumferential seal. Such O-rings are available at many hardware stores. PA2 (b) A sealing ring is cut from flat, elastic coated belting. Such belting comes in flat sheets, and is usually available at hardware stores as well. In an emergency, a sealing ring could be cut out with scissors. Alternately, a molded cup-shaped sealing ring could be used.